"Who is she, Louis!" demanded his father, casting aside the evening newspaper and folding up his spectacles.
"I've told you, father."
"I beg to differ with you. Who is this girl? In what description of business is she actually engaged?"
The young fellow's face grew red:
"She was engaged in—the drama."
"What!"
"She was an actress," he said, realising now the utter absurdity of any hope from the beginning, yet now committed and determined to see it through to the bitter end.
"An actress! Louis!" faltered his mother.
There was a silence, cut like a knife by the thin edge of his father's voice:
"If she was an actress, what is she now?"